Chapter Twenty-One

"Comm. F. Tharrist >> 'Y'"

That night, Clenard and Von joined them at the coffee table for dinner, pulling up a couple folding chairs from the hall closet so they didn’t all have to share the couch. For the past two hours, Gina had painstakingly walked Callana through the ins and outs of cooking shrimp scampi—from thawing and peeling the shrimp to preparing the roux, then accidentally spilling the contents of an entire salt shaker onto said roux, then hastily remaking it but realizing that they’d run out of garlic, then rushing to find garlic powder, only to find that the garlic powder had long since clumped into a massive, stale ball in the pantry, then finally realizing that they didn’t even have any pasta, until finally giving up and ordering a pizza.

Once the pizza had arrived and Gina had thoroughly tipped the pimply teenaged boy who brought it, they all gathered around the coffee table and dug in. Thankfully, Callana had agreed to avoid trying out the more… exotic pizza toppings until after she’d tried a good, old fashioned pepperoni and cheese pizza. That girl would eat anything if you put it on her plate. Hell, she’d probably eat the plate, too.

“Fuck,” Clenard said, diving in for another slice. “It’s been too long.”

“Yeah?” Von asked. “I mean, it’s okay, but I never did get the hype for pizza. It’s, like, the most basic food I’ve ever had.”

“Basic?” Clenard said, reeling in horror.

“How dare,” Gina snapped. “How dare.”

“Yeah, yeah, bite me,” Von said, waving a hand in the air. “Dough and tomato and cheese and meat. I was looking forward to the scampi.”

“Yes!” Callana said. “I am sorry! I dumped the salt. That was a bad idea.”

“Eh,” Gina said. “It was never gonna work out. We were condemned to Pizza from the start.”

“Yeah, not gonna lie, I kinda dropped the ball on this one, guys,” Von said.

“Who likes shrimp anyway?” Clenard said, shrugging. “Too many legs. If it’s got more than four legs, it’s not edible.”

Callana switched targets from the pizza to a strip of the pizza’s box. As Clenard gaped in revulsion, she scarfed the cardboard down like manna from Heaven.

“I’m never gonna get used to that,” Clenard said.

But then, Gina started gnawing on her champagne flute, reveling in the multilayered taste—the oddly spicy, smoky mix of savory and herby flavor, as if she’d taken a bite from a fifty-gnollen steak. It didn’t pair well with the pizza, but damn did she not care.

“You—you guys are so weird,” Clenard said, shaking his head. “You’ve got a frikkin’ pizza right in front of you, and you’re eating glass and cardboard. Cardboard!”

“I mean, the cardboard sucks,” Gina said. “I don’t get how you eat that shit, Cal. It’s so bland.”

“It’s like lettuce,” Callana said. “Palate clean-ser.”

“You people,” Clenard said. “Von, promise me you’ll never eat glass.”

“Don’t make that promise, Von!” Gina said. “You have no idea what you’re missing out on.”

“I think I’m good,” Von said. “I’ll stick with actual food, thanks.”

“Coward.”

Von shrugged.

As the meal went on, they continued to share jabs and jokes, chuckling and grinning all the while. When Clenard and Von brought out a six-pack, Gina thought about indulging herself, but she abstained when she saw Callana turn the drinks down. The night stretched on, reaching past 11:00 and pulling itself toward midnight, when a strange, blue shell of light surrounded Callana.

The shell rippled with a splash, as if it were made of water. The four all stared at the roiling surface of that odd bubble, until they realized that a four-inch hole had silently opened up in their ceiling, at a slight angle above Callana’s head. The splash seemed to originate from just below it. Layers of roof were visible through the perfectly clean and round opening—two-by-four wooden supports, layers of fiberglass insulation, and the edges of shale shingles.

“The fuck?” Von said. The four watched with stunned curiosity as yet another hole opened up in the ceiling, and that bubble around Callana rippled yet again. And then again.

“Our roof?” Gina exclaimed. “What the fuck, really?”

“Wait,” Clenard said, shaking his head. “What the fuck is going on?”

“They’re shooting lasers through the roof!” Gina said, growling. “Those absolute fucking assholes!”

“Oh, Brovar,” Von said, “what are we gonna tell the landlord?”

“If he makes us pay for this shit, I’m gonna deck him right in the schnoz,” Gina said.

Callana cocked her head. “There’s that word again,” she muttered.

“Are they trying to kill Callana?” Clenard asked. “Why are we being so calm about this?”

“It’s so quiet,” Von whispered.

Gina rolled her eyes. “Anyone want any more pizza? I’m gonna put it in the fridge.”

“Why is everyone acting so fucking calm?” Clenard snapped.

“Hey,” Von said, reaching over and rubbing Clenard’s shoulder. “It’s okay, I’m sorry.”

“What is happen-ing?” Callana asked.

“They’re trying to kill you,” Clenard said, his eyes wild. “Oh, dear Brovar, they’re actually trying to murder you.”

Callana frowned. “That is mean,” she said as yet another splash rippled up from right above her head.

Then, the earth shook—twice as hard as it had when the stranger had come to warn them.

Gina ran back into the living room, hollering up at the hole in the ceiling, “Not after we cleaned all this shit up! Nuh-uh! Fuck you!”

A few minutes passed while the four rushed around the house, steadying shelves and picking up knick-knacks as they clattered onto the floor. Gina kept cursing, and Clenard soon joined in.

Then, someone knocked on the door.

Uh-oh.

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